¡No suban el puente, bajen el río!

I'm a big fan of Jerry Lewis. It seems people either love him or hate him. They either get the humor or they don't. I have every movie he's made, except for this one. And after seeing it again today, I realize why.

First of all he's completely miscast. It was mistake to cast him in this role and an even bigger mistake for him to take the job. This obviously wasn't a role for a comedian because the film isn't a comedy. Is divorce funny? When is the last time you heard someone say, "My divorce was hilarious."?

Then there's Jacqueline Pearce, who plays the role of his wife, or ex-wife. I'm amazed at all the positive talk about her. She can't act, looks like she cut her hair herself while wearing a blindfold and is totally annoying.

And if the storyline wasn't bad enough, throw in a girls scout troop, with mumps headed up by the stuffy Patricia "voice like the French Chef" Routledge. Seriously? Why? It had nothing to do with the plot.

And as I stare at the screen in disbelief that this is a Jerry Lewis movie, it all makes sense when you realize it was directed by Jerry Paris - the untalented hack that played Dick Van Dyke's neighbor.

Odd that the video cover says "The original king of comedy at his outrageous best!" Yes, he's one of the original kings of comedy, but in this film he's never outrageous and at his all time worst.

I'm well known--well, or at least I'd like to be well known--for arguing that it's a mistake to identify genres with emotional reactions in viewers. For example, I think it's wrong to conflate "horror" and "scary movie", where "scary" is intended to describe the emotional reaction the film is supposed to cause in the viewer. "Horror" instead should describe the content of the film and (maybe) the way that content is handled. Likewise with comedy, although the identification of modern comedies and laughter is probably the most difficult case to disentangle. (If we use the traditional sense of "comedy", the disentangling is much easier.)

I bring all of this up not to bore you, or even to flabbergast you with how pretentious, pompous, or pseudo-intellectual I sound (or whatever other epithet you'd like to apply). I bring it up merely to say that the problems I had with Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River aren't solely based on it being a largely unfunny comedy--which it is. There are unfunny comedies that can be good films. Just like horror films need not be scary to be good, comedies need not be funny, or need not primarily aim for that. But Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River has a host of other problems that make it not succeed above a "D" level, or a 6.

It's difficult, at least this far removed in time, to say what exactly director Jerry Paris was shooting for here. The film is about George Lester (Jerry Lewis). The beginning has a quickly progressing sequence where we see George go from being a kid to meeting his wife and already having problems with her as he takes her on extreme business trips (often in hostile environments) across the globe. This all happens in maybe four or five minutes. The common theme throughout these all-too-quick scenes, and the gist of the film, is that George is a cross between a misguided dreamer/entrepreneur and a con-man/shyster.

Unfortunately, this opening sequence was maybe the best thing about Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River. There was a good story in following George as he grew up, met his wife and went on crazy business trips. Much of the opening is funny. This material should have been stretched into feature length.

But instead, Paris and writer Max Wilk, adapting his own novel for the screenplay, give us a very convoluted story set while George and his wife, Pamela (Jacqueline Pearce), are getting divorced. The film ends up being about a confused scheme to bilk some oil sheiks out of £50,000 and at the same time, get George's wife back into his arms. The premise isn't bad, but the script and the direction are a mess.

It doesn't help that Paris seems like he tried to reel Lewis in a bit--or maybe Lewis was trying to appear relatively more serious and sophisticated. Whatever the cause, the result is that Lewis is a bit boring and uncharismatic, and when he tries to do more manic comic bits, they tend to fall flat. Constructing the plot so that Lewis is stuck at home, mostly not interacting with others, wasn't a great idea either. It's like a literal representation of "phoning in" a performance. At the same time, it's clear that Paris was often going for a "madcap comedy", but he achieves neither a convincing "madcap" feeling nor many laughs.

Pearce's performance is decent, but she seems to be in the wrong film. Her tone doesn't match anyone else's. There are also two very good supporting actors, Terry-Thomas, as fellow shyster H. William Homer, and Patricia Routledge, as Lucille Beatty. Both do the best job they can given the script and direction problems, but neither quite manage to take off--either they just can't muster the momentum to take over as they need to, or they weren't allowed to.

It's not that the film is a complete disaster. There are occasional sections that work, such as the beginning, mentioned above. There are also occasional sections that are funny, such as the idea of turning the house into a restaurant/disco, and the scenes featuring Fed Davies (Bernard Cribbins) in his second job (although the fact that he had two jobs wasn't explained very well). More often, there are scenes that might make you smile. But overall, the film is quite a trainwreck, because of the bad story/script and direction, despite the fact that the ending is satisfying, and the actors keep doing their best to surmount the difficulties.

Also on the positive side, the cinematography is crisp ad colorful if not particularly innovative, and the sets/locations are occasionally attractive. But this is not nearly enough to recommend the film.

I don't think I've seen any of Paris' other films yet, although I've seen a lot of his television work, which was often quite funny--he's directed episodes of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961), "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970), and "The Odd Couple" (1970), for instance--all excellent shows. Maybe his talent was more suited for filling in 22 minutes of a comedy template than the more free-form structure of a feature film.

A labored comedy that lurches from one silly set piece to the next, 1968's "Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River" is certainly middling Jerry Lewis at best. In this one, Jerry plays an American wheeler-dealer living in London who is so busy chasing after money and arranging schemes that his wife, the yummy Jacqueline Pearce, dumps him in disgust. To win her back, Jerry turns her family mansion into a Chinese disco (don't ask!) and arranges a deal with his sometimes-partner, the usually dependable Terry-Thomas, to steal the plans for a new oil drill and sell them to the Arabs. Many unfunny situations ensue, some of them painful. Lewis is a bit cooler here than usual, only occasionally lapsing into his trademark goofiness. Jerry & Terry would have made a good comedy team, but they DO need something better to work with. Anywaste, I originally rented this one out because I had so enjoyed Ms. Pearce's work in a pair of 1966 Hammer horror films, "The Plague of the Zombies" and "The Reptile," and she turns out to be a gifted comedic actress here. Other pleasant surprises include the presences of Margaret Nolan (so fondly remembered by fans of the movie "Goldfinger") and Patricia Routledge, almost 25 years before playing Hyacinth Bucket on the Britcom "Keeping Up Appearances." Still, despite some good folks in the cast, I think I only laffed once: when Jerry said that one of his mumps had just exploded (again, don't ask!). This is a film that will best be appreciated by those who are either very stoned, very young or, I suppose, very French!

Jerry Lewis plays George Lester, an American man who lives in Britain.He wants to become rich, quick and he comes up with schemes.He marries a pretty Englisg woman Pamela (Jacqueline Thomas), who then wants a divorce because she's tired of being dragged around the world.George wants her back.Jerry Paris is the director of Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1967).It's main star, comedian Jerry Lewis turns 83 today.It's always a joy to watch the master at work.I found the VHS last year and just watched it.While this isn't the best movie Jerry has been in, it still has some good moments.It's quite funny when Jerry goes to Dudley's office wearing a moustache and trying to take pictures with that mini camera.All Jerry Lewis fans should see this.

Pretty good film with Jerry Lewis and Terry Thomas involved in a money scam to raise money quickly. George Lester (Lewis) and his wife Pam (Jacqueline Pearce, who looks and sounds JUST like Audrey Hepburn, even her wardrobe) are getting a divorce, and in an attempt to hold onto her, George has spent a lot of money converting their house into a business. Pam will have none of it, and now George needs money fast. He and his buddy Willie Homer (Terry Thomas) come up with a scheme to sell something that belongs to Pam's new beau Dudley Heath (Nick Parsons). Thomas had made "Naked Truth" with P. Sellers ten years prior... Keep an eye out for a YOUNG Patricia Routledge - she will go on to be Hyacinth Bucket (its Bou - quet !) on BBC's "Keeping Up Appearances". She keeps getting in the way of George's scam. Viewers will know the gap-toothed Terry Thomas as the Colonel and botanist from Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (J. Lewis had a cameo in that) , and TONS of film appearances in the UK and the US. Here, Lewis plays the straight man, who spends most of the film storming and fuming, trying to keep Heath away from Pamela. The funniest scenes in the flick are on the two airplane trips from England to Lisbon, and the slapstick comedy there is done by the flight attendant (Bernard Cribbins). There ARE some funny one-off lines and scenes from J Lewis, (he even says two separate lines directly into the camera). While it IS a clever farce, this has more of a serious, believable story-line than the earlier, sillier J Lewis films where he spoke in a high pitched voice and tripped over himself every couple minutes. Unfortunately, the ending is quite weak, compared to the pace of the rest of the movie. Story by Max Wilk, who had also written "It Happened to Jane", starring Doris Day. Directed by Jerry Paris, best known from the Dick Van Dyke Show. He made the jump from acting to directing pretty early on, and did mostly directing from the 1960s on.